ayy lmao

I can pinpoint the exact moment when I began to lose my mind.
It wasn't a gradual process. Life would have had to have been generous to give me warning signs. Life was anything but that.
Monday, January 26. 2015. I was getting ready for school when I felt it: A stabbing pain that seemed to permeate my skull. I gasped, dropping my hair brush and falling down on the tiled bathroom floor, clutching the sides of my head. A migraine? I was about to dismiss it as such when I heard it. Amidst my shallow breaths it was very faint, yet each word carried with it an eerie vibration that resonated in my very core.
Finally...I have awakened.
My eyes snapped open. Looking around, I could not find anything that could have made that sound. There was no one home but me. Everything was turned off.
It is all in my head.
I got up. My hands reached out and gripped the sides of the sink for support. Shakily, I leaned forward until my face was inches from the mirror... and let out a scream. My eyes were yellow.  My canines had elongated, tiny daggers in my mouth.
Soon, this body shall be completely mine, the voice crooned sweetly in my mind.
At that moment I knew I was losing myself, to what I was not entirely sure.  With dreadful finality, something had clicked into place within me. In muted horror I watched as my arm lifted up as if pulled by strings and smash the mirror with a strength that was not my own.  I felt no pain as the pieces of glass pierced my flesh, drawing rivulets of blood from the wounds. It was as if I was merely a puppet, now moving to the tune of the eldritch horror embedded in my brain.
I moaned, disgusted and suddenly so, so hungry. I eyed the blood seeping from my palm.
I definitely can't go to school like this.
With what willpower remained within me, I wrenched myself out of the bathroom and ran into my room. I stole a glance at the mirror on my vanity table as I made my way to my bed. I was fine! No yellowed eyes, absolutely nothing. The only thing amiss was the gashes on my arm and my frenzied expression. I threw myself on my bed and my panicked sobs were muffled by my pillow.
I was turning into a monster.
Somehow, I managed to fall asleep. In my fitful slumber, I dreamed. I was six again, reliving the last time I was with my parents before they died. It was during a camping trip. I had become separated from them, because I thought I heard something calling me. I spotted something that was lying beside the  gnarly tree near on the river bank. I quickened my pace. It was telling me to hurry... I wondered how my parents could not hear it. Perhaps it was an injured animal? I knelt down, pushing back the pile of leaves covering it...
The doorbell rang and I jolted awake. Hopping off of my bed, the traces of my unpleasant dream disintegrated as wakefulness settled in.  Running to kitchen, I quickly turned on the sink and splashed water on my face, furiously rubbing at the dried blood that was drying on my arm. I tugged the sleeve off my shirt down to hide the worst of it.
“Coming!” I tried to keep my voice steady. Who could it be at this hour? Glancing at the clock, I had realized I had slept for hours, and school was out by now.  My aunt should still be at work. I opened the door a tiny fraction and peeked through the opening. Squinting from the sunlight, I could make out the outline of a girl dressed entirely in black, with waist length lavender hair. It was Vivienne.
Vivienne was perhaps the only true friend I had. I mostly kept to myself in school, preferring to fade into the background, and she was the only one who had ever bothered to befriend me. She was a little strange herself. I had the suspicion that Vivienne was always off in her own little world, as if nothing on this earth held her attention for very long. She maintained the appearance of being here, but her mind was elsewhere. It fascinated as much as it frightened me at times.
“You weren't at school today, so I came to drop off notes.”
She walked in, throwing her backpack carelessly on my living room floor. A book on the occult tumbled out. She stared directly at me, and it was obvious to me that the notes were just an excuse.
“Are you sick?”
No, I'm just turning into a monster, I thought to myself, and a bubble of frenzied laughter escaped me. How could I possibly begin to explain that to my friend?
“Mental health day,” I answered instead, shyly meeting her gaze. My stomach rumbled. A fragment of a thought swam up to the surface, disturbing and unwanted.
I wonder what she tastes like.
Vivienne rested her hand on my forehead. My eyes shut, enjoying her familiar touch. her fingertips danced lightly on across my eyelids.
“It's awake now, is it not?”
I froze.
“What was that?”
Confused, my eyes opened and were met with her intense stare. It was if she could see the thing inside me, clearer than I did. I shivered. She couldn't possibly know.
“I knew you didn't come to give me notes.”
Chuckling darkly, she said, “Let's go outside.”
The approaching sunset painted the sky a dreamy pink and orange. Tears brimmed in my eyes as we stepped out into my backyard. I felt like I could explode. I may be turning into a monster but at least I still had these very real, human emotions. These overwhelming, bittersweet feelings. It was love. I had known it from the first moment she first smiled at me, and I returned it, nervously and blushing like mad. The time we spent together, the fact that she stuck around with someone as dull as me... It was as if the proverbial cupid's arrow had struck me on my chest, and all the unrequited love I had for her spilled out of me in a sea of red.
“You look scared. Are you?” It was meant as a joke, but there was a sliver of seriousness in the lilt of her voice.
“Very.” I admitted. You have no idea.
 I wasn't sure why we were outside, but I didn't question it. Vivienne always had a reason for doing what she does, even if I didn't see it myself.
Words were slipping past my lips. “I lo-”
“I know about the thing inside your head, Primrose.”
I flinched.  The rest of my confession withered upon my tongue. “...thing?” Panic welled up inside of me. The rug of calm was swept from under my feet and now I was falling, deeper and deeper into this oblivion.
	“Remember how you told me about that camping trip with your parents?” Vivienne continued, her tone casual. She began to walk around in circles around me, hands clasped behind her back. I nodded, a shudder running through me. “What does that have to do with anything?” I was quickly becoming filled with a sense of dread. “It has everything to do with what's happening to you now. You saw that slug by the tree, right? I was there that day, playing in the woods. And I saw. I saw everything!” Her steps quickened as her excitement grew. “From the moment it jumped up and went in your ear and you freaked out. I thought you were dead, and I was going to check on you, but then you got up. It was like a zombie, you twitched all over the place.  I followed you around, because I was curious, you know?”
“Stop,” I choked out, covering my ears. As if her words were the key, memories within me began to unlock. Memories I had always dismissed as dreams before.
	“You got back to your parents. It wasn't an animal that killed them. It was that thing in your head. It was you.”
I sank to the floor, squeezing the sides of my head. As if that could get it out of me, I thought bitterly.
“Is this why you became my friend?” My voice was hollow.
“To observe you, yes. I read up about this. Hard to find much written on it, I might add. I knew it was going to wake up again soon. I'm glad I got here before anyone else did. I've been waiting.” She finally stopped in front of me, holding a hand out to help me rise. I took it and she pulled me up into an embrace.
I wanted to die. Even if our friendship was just a morbid curiosity on her part, I still cherished it. She was the only one who could truly understand me.
My fingers dug into her shoulders as she plunged the knife deep into my belly, slicing across it as if I was an unopened envelope. I felt the sickening motion of my organs tumbling from inside of me along with blood, intestines slipping out and dangling grotesquely between my legs.
“W-why d-d-id you,” I gasped. Vivienne pulled back, flinging the knife into a bush and gripping my jaw with a bloody hand. Her lips were drawn in a tight line.
“I am setting you free, Primrose.” She spoke in a low voice, never taking those cold eyes off me.
My legs gave out and I staggered, clutching my stomach. So much blood. The scent of iron filled my nostrils. Drool began to pool in my mouth. Not now! I urged the parasite inside me.
“Let it wake up, you're going to be fine.”
Eat. Eat. Eat. I have to eat.
Vivienne pulled the collar of her shirt loose. Exposing her neck, she beckoned me over. “Let me help you. I'm the only one that can.” Growling, I stumbled towards her. My teeth (I realized with a sort of numbness that they were sharp once more) sank into the crook of her neck. I fed. Looking up at the sky,  I saw the stars twinkling up above, melded in with a dusky violet color-beautiful and indifferent to us. I felt the last traces of my humanity slipping away from me. It was as if a weight lifted off me, and I could breathe once more. It's funny,  I thought I would be more upset.
“We have to leave now, before your aunt comes back,” Vivienne murmured. I (was it even me anymore?) glanced at her. Yes, it was better to start off somewhere where no one knew me. It would be much easier to eat.
I took her hand and together we walked towards that uncertain future.